The Long Christmas Dinner - Influence

Influence

The Long Christmas Dinner inspired a famous scene in Orson Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane — the breakfast-table montage in which the nine-year deterioration of Kane's marriage is told through a conversation seen in five vignettes. Several breakfast scenes were to be filmed, but during shooting Welles had the idea of simply photographing it as a continuous scene without dissolves, with the camera whipping back and forth.

" was stolen from The Long Christmas Dinner of Thornton Wilder!" Welles told filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich. "I did the breakfast scene thinking I'd invented it. It wasn't in the script originally. And when I was almost finished with it, I suddenly realized that I'd unconsciously stolen it from Thornton and I called him up and admitted to it." When Bogdanovich asked how Wilder reacted, Welles replied, "He was pleased." Welles and Wilder were good friends.

Read more about this topic:  The Long Christmas Dinner

Famous quotes containing the word influence:

    At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.
    Derek Wall (b. 1965)

    What do women want with votes, when they hold the sceptre of influence with which they can control even votes, if they wield it aright?
    Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)

    I became the Incredible Shrinking Mother the year they started junior high. If our relationship today depended on physical clout, I would have about the same influence with them that the republic of Liechtenstein has on world politics.
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)